Abstract
Autonomous robots, like living systems, must be adaptive in nature if we want them to preserve their integrity while completing their mission. The challenge to survive in their environment is better accomplished if they are open systems, interacting with the environment by exchanging matter, energy, information, and so on. The roboticle framework, presented here forth, is an attempt to model how the autonomous robot control unit works. It borrows from living systems the idea that sensing and acting on the environment can be recognized as a mechanism exchanging energy with the environment in order to maintain an highly organized internal control structure to resist to external applied perturbations. The necessary energy balancing is provided by an autopoietic loop which is fed by the energy entering the robot through its sensor devices and it is dissipated by its effectors for properly acting in the environment. The autopoietic loop is also responsible of the adaptive properties of the robot.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adami, C.: Introduction to Artificial Life. Springer, New York (1998)
Anderson, T.L., Donath, M.: Animal behaviour as a paradigm for developing robot autonomy. In: Maes, P. (ed.) Designing Autonomous Agents, pp. 145–168. MIT, Cambridge (1990)
Arkin, R.C.: Integrating behavoural perceptual and world knowledge in reactive navigation. In: Maes, P. (ed.) Designing Autonomous Agents, pp. 105–122. MIT, Cambridge (1990)
Arkin, R.C.: Behavior-Based Robotics. MIT, Cambridge (1998)
Beer, R.D.: A dynamical system perspective on agent-environment interaction. Artif. Intell. 72(1–2), 173–215 (1995)
Breitenberg, V.: Vehicles, Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. MIT, New York (1996)
Brooks, R.: A layered intelligent control system for a mobile robot. IEEE J. Robot. Autom. RA-2, 14–23 (1986)
Brooks, R.A.: Intelligence without reason. IJCAI 1, 569–595 (1991)
Connell, J.H.: Minimalist Mobile Robotics. Number 5 in Perspective in Artificial Intelligence. Academic, London (1990)
D’Angelo, A., Montesello, F., Pagello, E.: Building autonomy within self-organizing dynamical agents. In: Pagello, E., Groen, F., Arai, T., Dillmann, R., Stentz, A. (eds.) Intelligent Autonomous Systems 6 (IAS-6), Venezia, 25–28 July, pp. 43–50. IOS, Amsterdam (2000)
D’Angelo, A., Montesello, F., Pagello, E.: Can representation be liberated from symbolism: modeling robot actions with roboticles. In: Horn, W. (ed.) Proceedings of European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI-2000), pp. 658–662, Berlin, 20–26 August 2000
D’Angelo, A., Ota, J., Pagello, E.: How intelligent behavior can emerge from a group of roboticles moving around. In: Proceedings of Intelligent Robots and Sistems (IROS’03), pp. 1733–1738, Las Vegas, 27–31 October 2003
D’Angelo, A., Pagello, E.: Making collective behaviours to work through implicit communication. In: Casals, A., Dillmann, R., Giralt, G. (eds.) Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA-05), pp. 81–87, Barcelona, 18–22 April 2005
Langton, C. (ed.): Artificial Life: An Overview. MIT, Cambridge (1995)
Haken, H.: Synergetics: an approach to self-organization. In: Yates, F.E. (ed.) Self-Organizing Systems. Plenum, New York (1987)
Jaeger, H.: The dual dynamics design scheme for behaviour-based robots: a tutorial. Technical Report 966, GMD, St. Augustin (D) (1996)
Kaelbling, L.P., Rosenschein, S.J.: Action and planning in embedded agents. In: Maes, P. (ed.) Designing Autonomous Agents, pp. 35–48. MIT, Cambridge (1990)
Kay, J.: Self_organization in living systems, Chapter 2. Ph.D. thesis, Ontario, Canada (1984)
Scott Kelso, J.A.: Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behaviour. Bredford Book. MIT, Cambridge (1995)
Maes, P.: Situated agents can have goals. In: Maes, P. (ed.) Designing Autonomous Agents, pp. 49–70. MIT, Cambridge (1990)
McFarland, D., Bosser, U.: Intelligent Behavior in Animals and Robots. MIT, Cambridge (1993)
Moravec, H.: Mind Age: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1988)
Pagello, E., D’Angelo, A., Montesello, F., Garelli, F., Ferrari, C.: Cooperative behaviors in multi-robot systems through implicit communication. Robot. Auton. Syst. 29(1), 65–77 (1999)
Pagello, E., Ferrari, C., D’Angelo, A., Montesello, F.: Intelligent multirobot systems perfoming cooperative tasks. In: IEEE Int. Conf. on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Tokyo, 12–15 October 1999
Perelson, A.S.: Network thermodynamics. An overview. Biophys. J. 15(7), 667–685 (1975)
Pfeifer, R.: Building fungus eaters: design principles of autonomous agents. In: Maes, P., Mataric, M.J., Meyer, J.A., Pollack, J., Wilson, S.W. (eds.) From Animals to Animats 4, Simulation of Adaptive Behaviour (SAB96), pp. 3–12, Cape Cod, 9–13 September (1996)
Pfeifer, R., Scheier, C.: Understanding Intelligence. MIT, Cambridge (1999)
Prigogine, I., Stengers, I.: Order out of Chaos. Bantam, New York (1984)
Schoener, G., Dose, M., Engels, C.: Dynamycs of behaviour: theory and applications for autonomous robot architectures. Robot. Auton. Syst. 16(2–4), 213–245 (1995)
Sipper, M.: Fifty years research on self-replication: an overview. Artif. Life 4(3), 237–257 (1998)
Steels, L.: Discovering the competitors. Adapt. Behav. 4(2), (1996)
Steels, L.: Intelligence—dynamics and representation. In: Steels, L. (ed.) The biology and Technology of Intelligent Autonomous Agents, Nato ASI. Springer, Berlin (1995)
Steinhage, A., Schoener, G.: The dynamic approach to autonomous robot navigation. In: IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE’97), pp. 7–12. IEEE, Piscataway (1997)
Varela, F.: Describing the logic of living: the adequacy and limitations of the idea of autopoiesis. In: Zeleny, M. (ed.) Autopoiesis: A Theory of Living Organization, pp. 36–48. North Holland, New York (1981)
Varela, F., Maturana, H., Uribe, R.: Autopoiesis: the organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. Biosystems 5, 187–196 (1974)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
H. Yuasa died on September 2002.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
D’Angelo, A., Pagello, E. & Yuasa, H. Issues on Autonomous Agents from a Roboticle Perspective. J Intell Robot Syst 52, 389–416 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-008-9223-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-008-9223-8